Lupus anticoagulant in Nigerian women with preeclampsia

The Lupus Anticoagulant (LA) which used to be known for its interference with coagulation studies in the 1950s, has now been recognised to be associated also with diverse disease conditions in the developed countries. Our aim therefore was to determine the prevalence of the lupus anticoagulant (LA) in women with pre-eclampsia and controls.

A total of seventy-six pregnant women, were studied, twenty-six pre-eclampsia and fifty who were apparently healthy served as controls. The Kaolin clotting time test (KCT) was performed in duplicates on plasma samples from subjects and controls. Mixing ratio was calculated in order to determine the presence of the lupus anticoagulant, Kaolin clotting time ratio of greater than or equal to 1.2 was taken to signify the presence of the lupus anticoagulant.

Eleven (42.3%) of the women with pre-eclampsia had prolonged KCT as against 2(4%) of the pregnant control. The clotting time of 7 of the '11 pre-eclampsia with prolonged KCT, were correctd by normal plasma, while 4 were not corrected. The KCT ratio of all 4 were greater than 1.2 signifying the presence of LA (15.4% prevalence). One (2%) of the pregnant control had KCT ratio greater than 1.2 (2%) prevalence of LA).

A number of Nigeria women with pre-eclampsia also have the lupus anti-coagulant therefore African women with pre-eclampsia should be screened for the presence of lupus anticoagulant.